Laurence Ready
The estuary
No way around this: a huge gash in the land
and a slick of old brown tide-water, shivering
between stretches of black mire, crawling away
towards the blue-grey pencil line of the horizon.
Downstream, a small boat, unreachable, tugs
against a worn, tooth-like stump.
Out walking earlier, no destination in mind,
I came across the river. All sinewed and veined
with sunlight, it raced the green of a far bank.
And led me to this: to look upon remains.
Whole life-times are washed to here, and submerged.
Strange, smothered shapes, drowned memories,
litter the oily black surface. This silty mud, so soft -
I see a minute crab whizz across, then tracks flicked
up by delicate claws quickly ooze smooth again.
There are little tufted islands of wire-grass here,
and tine dry canals of mud-coloured sand.
Some children are playing. They jump over those
channels, use sticks to turn boulders in them.
Most of all now, I see there really is no way
around this, as I watch the estuary, like a great
withered arm, dragging itself back into the sea.
Page(s) 63
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